New Address! 9A Hepburn Pl.

Kambah, ACT 2902

It’s been a busy year for us!

We guess one of our big events was that we sold our house in Chifley and brought a new

(Dual Occupancy) one in Kambah, just 2-3 KM (as the crow flies) away from our old one. We

can’t say it wasn’t a traumatic experience! First we had to downsize our possessions by

giving away to friends and relatives – then the massive Garage sale, very much supported

by our Children and Grand Children. Then after moving everything here we had to buy

shelving and double door cabinets for the garage - those plus a (plastic) garden

shed to almost house all the stuff that we probably should have got rid of as well… The

middle of the above collage is a bit of an experiment. A 360deg panorama in the living room

– I even managed to trap Betty… Of course all the pictures and many many more are on-line

at https://www.flickr.com/photos/144334942@N06/albums

We moved in early June, and since then we

have done (or mostly got other people to do)

lots of things that we wanted to do to change

the house into our home. Like a massive solar

installation of 18 high efficiency panels and a

Tesla battery. As the weather gets closer to

summer we almost always generate 2-3 times

more than we use, so we are hoping for a big

rebate on our first bill. We generated >1MWh in November alone and exported most of it. .

Also we replaced the Gas cooktop with an induction electric one and the instant Gas water

heater with a heat pump storage unit and got rid of gas altogether. After paying around

$2000/winter for heating in Chifley we didn’t want to repeat the experience here as Gas in

particular will only get more expensive…

The other big item is a roof over our deck in front of the house, and it will have a large

centre opening section which closes automatically if it rains when we are not home. We

are hoping for planning approval any day now. Luckily none of our new neighbours

objected when they were officially asked by the ACT government if they wanted to do that!

Our new Address is : 9A Hepburn Pl. Kambah ACT 2902 and our new phone

number is (02) 6181 4579. And we are very lucky to live next door to

Aden who built the house….

We visited NZ between 25th Sep and 16th Oct with our daughter Hilary.

Singapore Airlines have

started a service that runs

from Singapore to

Canberra to Wellington

and return 3 times a week.

It cuts 6-8 hours off the

old trip when we used to

wait around in Sydney. We

had flights of just over 3

hrs to and from

Wellington. Hilary turned

50 this year (more later)

and is hooked on fitness. I

think she thought we

needed watching – specially when walking the Queen Charlotte track in the north of the

South Island.

We had been wanting to walk this track for a few years as you stay in reasonably luxurious

lodges overnight As we had been walking on Mt.Taylor and later the Urambi Hills in

Kambah we thought we should be O.K. But we were really unprepared for the track which

was deep mud in many places and wet on the 2nd day as well. Still we covered 26KM or so

with many climbs up to 400M or so along the way. Hilary of course covered another 36Km

in bad weather on the 3rd day and sprinted to meet the water taxi back to Picton on the 4th

– she covered the whole 86Km or so while we caught boats to the next lodge!!

Hilary was keen to

walk/run the Heaphy track

which was laid out by my

Surveyor Grandfather –

there is a Saxon hut, Saxon

River, Saxon falls, etc! We

dropped her off at the

start and collected her at

the end on the West

coast! She had bad

weather - sleet and snow

but survived very tired. It’s

normally a 5 day walk but

she did it in 3.

Later we travelled down the West coast

which was predicably wet (they measure the

rainfall in Metres) to Fox and Franz Joseph

glaciers, then over to Wanaka, followed the

snow ploughs to Tekapo – then stayed in

Kaikora (missed the earthquake by a few

weeks) to Picton and back to Wellington.

Quite a memorable trip but the weather

could have been better.

Hilary turned 50 and celebrated in style

holding a fancy dress party with a Mad

Hatters tea party theme. It was a great

success and even these old fogies had fun!

So on to Family news. Our three girls are in various stages of study for doctorates - where

did that come from? And all three have been delivering papers at conventions in places like

Vienna, Bangkok, Glasgow, and many other

reasonably exotic locations. Who said doctors

were only interested in Medicine?

All the rest of our extended family are going

well, buying houses, building, getting degrees,

and presenting us with great Grandchildren.

We have 4 now – Yay! They are so busy that

over Christmas time most of them will be out

of town visiting in-laws or other family.

So this year we had an early Christmas lunch at Tim and Sheri’s place. It was a great

occasion with most of our extended family still in town. Then Betty and I have decided to

follow the crowd, and visit youngest daughter Catherine’s place in Brisbane after taking a

Christmas cruise out to New Caledonian and Hebrides islands, see https://goo.gl/aylUN5 .

How we went will have to wait till next year’s missive.

So hopefully you have managed to stay awake long enough for

us to wish you a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS and we hope 2017 will

be a superb year for you all.

Love and best wishes from John & Betty